Hi I'm Tom and I live down in the communist part of the south of france in Catalonia. For the last year I have made the conscious decision to work with my hands rather than fingers on a keyboard and have been reconditioning - old road, randonneurs and track bikes from 1910 - 1980.
I am going to be doing up a 1912 Peugeot Track bike this month and hopefully will be able to find some words of wisdom here to aid me on the way - and if anyone has any tyres I'd be over the bloody moon!
My current ride is a Le Jeune Special Tour de france - (colombus framed c1974 super Lj mechs universal super 68 brakes, TI crank, Campag front and rear drops, ideale 90 saddle with Zeus seatpost) I was told by the guy I bought it from that his father claimed only 30 were made but who knows - certainly I can find no other reference to them or evidence of them online so perhaps there is an element of truth in it. I'd like to get a couple of the photos up to see if anyone has seen another one. I also have a cinelli lugged Didier Louis frame which was raced in the Tour de france from 79-82 (with a bendy seatpost) by Dominic Leboeuf (amateur) which I'm trying to find a home for...

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File comment: Here is an arty shot of the le jeune (I Had a photographer friend over from Munich) who just had to overcomplicate things...20120908-IMG_0106.jpg [ 412.41 KiB | Viewed 1120 times ]

I shall be over in your part of the world (just over the border) in April of next year, the closest i will get to you is Figueres, a beautiful place to be (Catalonia, that is, not necessarily Figueres!!)

Figueres will be rather different to how remember it - there was a massive forest fire a couple of months back and the countryside all around figueres is but a cinder now. The locals certainly consider themselves catalan and half my children are in catalan speaking classes - much to my consternation as originally I thought it would be just an hour a day a week not the majority of every day.... It is superb biking country down here be it route or VTT.

Welcome to the site! I live just outside Montpellier, so not that far, not that Communist either...! You might find lots of information about very old French bikes on www.tontonvelo.com - it's a good site, plenty of good advice and banter. Bit like this one...

Any pictures of the Didier Louis?

_________________"The champions have better bikes, more expensive shoes, many more pairs of cycling shorts than we do, but they have the same roads" - Tim Krabbé

Montpellier is not that far at all - I drove to Rennes to pick this one up.... which was quite a round trip but stopped off in Bordeaux and spent the day with a collector there who has the most extraordinary collection of bikes I have ever seen under one persons roof - or should I say 4 Garden Huts!

If you want the specs they are in brief and roughly working from front to back - Techtron levers (a later addition) Modolo equipe callipers, cinelli stem (early logo) cinelli bars, spidel shifters (super LJ in all but name) and mechs nuovo record, Hubs are Spidel Pros , rims Mavic GP4 with D L embossed, Spidel Crank, Selle Italia Turbo. Size wise I think it is 56cm C2C top tube. I am taking it out with the local velo club on Sunday which I'm looking forward to.

I have been on Tonton quite often particularly helpful for identifying small artisinal builders who are pretty much unknown outside of the towns they used to work from.

I hope the wind has not been as savage for you as it has been down here for the past couple of days....

Tom - that bike is beautiful... And the photo of it in the street near dusk is great too. Nice part of the world. Good to hear you know about Tontonvelo, a very useful site.

I'm away from home at the moment so I'm not sure about the wind. My wife says it's cooling down a bit which is a relief after the summer...

I wish I lived nearer the Pyrenees, but my plan over the next few months is to explore the Cevennes when I get the opportunity - they're only about 30 minutes away and are great to ride in. I've been trying to trace the route described in "The Rider"...

_________________"The champions have better bikes, more expensive shoes, many more pairs of cycling shorts than we do, but they have the same roads" - Tim Krabbé

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